UK’s CityFibre to create 10,000 jobs for fibre broadband push

LONDON (Reuters) – Broadband company CityFibre said on Thursday it would create up to 10,000 new jobs over the next three years to help upgrade Britain’s digital infrastructure to full fibre.

The government aims to deploy gold-standard fast broadband across the nation by 2025, mainly delivered via fibre optic connections to the home.

Goldman Sachs-backed CityFibre, which is competing with larger rivals BT and Liberty Global’s Virgin Media in building new networks, said the jobs would be created as it rolls out infrastructure to more than 100 towns and cities at a cost of up to 4 billion pounds ($5 billion).

The company said wherever possible individuals would be recruited from the town or city identified for rollout, boosting local employment and economies.

It also said it would target groups such as service-leavers and those now unemployed as a result of the coronavirus crisis, as well as women and individuals from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, both of which were significantly under-represented in the construction industry.

(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Stephen Addison)